by Sophia James
‘Show me,’ he returned and brought her against him, the sunlight from the new day creating a river of warmth on their bed.
* * *
They renewed their vows two days later in the chapel to one side of the Lindsay town house and it was a small and private occasion. Stephen Hawkhurst was the best man and Maureen the bridesmaid. William Lindsay, the old Earl of St Auburn, had sent a note declining his attendance. Cassandra’s sister Anne had not been able to make the journey down from her home in Scotland because she was expecting her fourth child.
‘You look beautiful, Cassandra,’ Nathaniel said as she came down the stairs, her gown of cream silk shimmering in the new day.
‘The seamstress you organised was wonderfully fast and this time around I even have shoes.’
He laughed and took her hand, but poignancy lingered beneath the humour as both thought of the small house by the river.
‘Now and for ever,’ he whispered, brushing his lips across her cheek despite the onlookers, and Jamie standing between them wriggled in delight.
When the clergyman called them to an altar fashioned with flowers, the three of them linked hands and walked forward, her father, brother and Kenyon Riley just behind them.
‘Dearly beloved, we have come together in the presence of God to witness and bless the joining together of this man and this woman in holy matrimony...’
They looked at each other. This time they would be married under their own names, properly formed and completely legal.
* * *
A few hours later Stephen asked if he might speak to them both in the library where they would not be disturbed. After shutting the door he brought forth a leather satchel and took out a wad of documents from within.
‘I have a wedding present for you both.’
Nat stepped forward, the frown on his brow giving Cassie the inkling that he might know what was held within the papers. They looked important. Her own heart began to beat fast.
‘It is the official report from the British Service about the events that transpired in Perpignan after you were hurt in Languedoc, Nat.’
‘God.’ Her husband’s curse was soft.
‘It is not what you might think,’ Hawk said quickly and handed him over the account. ‘I have underlined the most crucial parts. Perhaps your wife might like to hear them.’
‘No.’ Her own voice, stiff with shock. How could Stephen Hawkhurst do this to her? She knew what would be within the letter, knew it to the bottom of her breaking heart. But Nathaniel was smiling and there was the suspicion of tears in his eyes as he began to read.
So it is concluded that on the fifth of November 1846 at about nine p.m. two masked men broke into the house of Mr Didier Desrosiers and Mr Gilbert Desrosiers in Toulouse, France, and killed each of them with two shots to the head.
Our agent in Languedoc, Nathaniel Lindsay, was also found on the right bank of the Basse River in Perpignan in the afternoon of the sixth of November 1846 with injuries to his head, stomach and right arm received by unknown enemies of England.
Despite extensive searching the perpetrators have never been brought to justice.
The fifth of November? The day before they had reached Perpignan. The day before she had told Lebansart the names. The day before she had branded herself a traitor. The day before shame had been scorched into memory.
‘It was not me, after all.’ The words slipped from her, tentative and unbelieving. ‘They were already dead?’
‘How did you know to find this?’ Nat spoke now directly to Stephen, the relief in his tone evident.
‘When you said you had married Cassandra Northrup in France I knew that you would not have done such a thing lightly. When you then went on to say that she had betrayed you, I realised there must be more to the affair than you had told me. At the Forsythe ball your wife made it known that there were others who died in Perpignan because of her actions and so I decided to find out exactly what it was she meant. After much searching I located this in a box that had been lost amongst others in the record room.’
‘Lost?’
‘Discarded, I think. Unsolved deaths. Cases closed to further enquiry.’
‘But their deaths were not my fault?’ The room felt farther away than it had been and a spinning lightness consumed Cassie as she groped for the chair at her side and sat down upon it. Hard. Nathaniel perched before her, taking her hands in his own.
‘This is the best wedding present anyone could give us, Hawk,’ he said, fingers warming her coldness. ‘Cassandra was already pregnant when Guy Lebansart caught us at Perpignan. By reciting the names she had seen on the letters in the place she had been captured, she was trying to save both me and our baby.’
‘But her confession and your injury took place the day after the Desrosiers died and at least a hundred miles to the south, so any information she gave was useless.’
‘I didn’t kill them.’ Tears of deliverance fell down her cheeks. ‘I didn’t,’ she repeated, the beauty of what the words implied washing across her like a balm.
‘You have both been to hell and back on a lie. But you married her again, Nat, even knowing this?’
‘When you love someone, you love them, Hawk, and there would be no argument in the world that would keep me from Cassandra. But this...this allows us peace.’
Standing up, he faced Stephen Hawkhurst. ‘I should have tried to find out all that transpired after that day, but I could not. I never wanted to sift through the files and know the betrayal.’
‘Yet you kept her name out of everything. I am not certain, had it been me, that I could have done that. King, country, oaths and all.’
Nathaniel laughed. ‘They are all nothing against love, my friend. Wait until you find it.’
Gathering the documents, Stephen replaced them in the book. ‘If Shavvon knew I had removed these...’ He left the rest unsaid. ‘But if I have them back tonight he will never need to know anything of it. He sends you his best, by the way.’
Cassie looked up at her husband and wondered just exactly who this Shavvon was that they were speaking of.
‘Our boss,’ Nathaniel explained quietly. ‘At the Service.’
‘But now this case is closed. For good.’ Stephen faced them both as he promised this and then he was gone, the documents in hand as the door closed behind him.
‘A marriage and a reprieve,’ Nat said as he drew Cassandra up against him. ‘A binding and a freedom. It has been quite a day, Lady Lindsay.’ She could feel his breath against her cheek, soft and known.
‘Lady Lindsay. I like the sound of that.’
‘My wife. An even better resonance.’
‘And what of the marriage night?’ she whispered, watching the flare of complicity and question in his pale eyes. ‘I think we should celebrate Hawk’s gift.’
‘I am completely at your disposal, my beautiful Sandrine,’ he returned, lifting her into his arms and taking her to bed.
Chapter Thirteen
The past week had been a whirlpool of activity. Maureen’s delight at her news, her father’s quiet pleasure at having three daughters now in advantageous unions and Jamie’s thrilled disbelief that the papa he had so often spoken of was promising to buy him a horse when they arrived at St Auburn.
After their wedding Cassandra had been inundated with calling cards, every door into society now open to her, though Nathaniel seemed distracted by his own work with the Service. She confronted him about it late on the third night
after their marriage when she had gone down to the library to find him surrounded by papers.
‘You look busy.’
‘Busy missing some clue that I am certain is right in front of me,’ he returned and stood.
‘It is the girls from the river and Sarah?’
He nodded. ‘Have you ever heard of the name Scrivener Weeks?’
‘No. He is the man who you think killed them?’
‘I do. I went to Wallingford and discovered that a few months ago another young woman was murdered there. A tall, dark and well-dressed man signed into the tavern late on the night the body was found, using the name of Scrivener Weeks. He left on the London coach early the next morning. No one can truly remember what he looked like.’
‘He could be anyone.’
‘Not quite. I think he is a member of the Venus Club.’
‘Like Uncle Reginald?’ Another thought occurred. ‘That is why you and Stephen Hawkhurst joined up in the first place?’
He smiled. ‘It is easier to keep an eye on people at close quarters. For what it is worth I have discounted your uncle.’
‘Why?’
‘He was ill with some sort of a chest infection when the girls were found on the riverbank here in London. He has the same physician as Hawkhurst does and the doctor was adamant Reginald Northrup could not have left his sick bed for a fortnight.’
‘How many members does the club have?’
‘Sixty-eight, and I have a group of thirteen names who fit the description of Scrivener Weeks.’
‘We leave for St Auburn tomorrow. Could Stephen Hawkhurst take over until we return?’
‘He will. I have told him my thoughts and given him the names. Perhaps he will see something that I have not.’
‘Sarah would be thankful to you for your time and effort in finding her killer.’
‘I haven’t yet.’
‘But you will.’
At that she took his hand and led him upstairs.
* * *
Late the next afternoon Cassandra could barely believe that they were almost at the principal country seat of the Lindsays, the fields about them rolling and green.
‘Will we be there soon, Papa?’
She smiled. Jamie never spoke to Nathaniel without adding on ‘Papa’. He had lost four years of his father and now he was making up for it. Sitting on Nathaniel’s knee, he looked at the various landmarks that were pointed out.
‘I used to swim in that river when I was very young. My father made wooden boats and we would sail them in the summer. Often they got stuck so I would jump in to rescue them.’
‘Can you make me a boat, Papa? We could do that, too.’
Cassandra’s heart swelled as her husband looked over at her, kissing the top of Jamie’s head as he did so. Maureen, Kenyon, Rodney and her father would be arriving the day after tomorrow and she was pleased to have a couple of days to settle in. The only cloud on the horizon was Nathaniel’s grandfather for they had not heard a word from him.
‘The first sight of the house can be seen past this rise,’ Nathaniel said and lifted Jamie higher. Cassie leaned forward to see it, too, and an enormous Georgian mansion materialised out of the distance, the six pillars across the front edifice flanked by two plainer wings, sitting on a hill. The tree-lined driveway wound towards it, a lake of grand proportions to one side.
‘St Auburn is beautiful.’ She could not keep the worry from her words.
‘And big,’ Jamie added.
‘It’s home,’ Nathaniel said and reached for her hand. ‘Our home.’
He had placed three of his staff into running the ledgers for the Daughters of the Poor and with his sizeable cash donation Cassie knew that all the work she had done would be left in competent hands. She would still hold regular meetings with Elizabeth and the staff, but the night-time rambles had ended and part of her was glad. This was a new chapter of her life and one she relished.
A line of servants had come out to greet them and there at the front door was an elderly man who Cassie reasoned would be Nathaniel’s grandfather. He leaned upon a stick and watched them carefully as the conveyance drew to a halt.
Jamie was out first, the sun on his hair mirroring his father’s and a sense of urgency and life on show that he had inherited as well. He looked right at home here, the tall yellow walls behind him with their meticulously pointed stone and inset windows. No small task for the masons, this building would have taken years and years to construct.
The old man came forward, his face devoid of expression. ‘You have come back,’ he said.
‘We have come home,’ Jamie cried. ‘This is going to be my home now with the lake and boats.’
‘Indeed?’
Such curling indifference had the effect of bringing Jamie closer to Nathaniel, fingers entwined in the expensive superfine of his father’s trousers.
‘William, this is my wife, Cassandra, and my son, Jamie.’
Pale silvered eyes whisked across her, calculating and assessing, and then they travelled over Jamie, the first glimmer of emotion showing.
‘Well, at least he looks like a St Auburn. Does he like horses?’
‘I have not ever ridden one, sir.’
‘Grandpa,’ he corrected. ‘Call me Grandpa. Your father used to.’
A rebuke coined within the softness of memory. Nathaniel’s hand tightened about her own, and Cassie hoped that whatever had gone wrong between them might soon be resolved.
After being introduced to the housekeeper and butler they walked along the line of other lesser servants, each one in a crisp and spotless uniform and all with generous welcomes. Once inside the Lindsay patriarch gestured for them to join him in a salon that ran along the front of the house, a room decorated in blues and greens.
‘I was surprised that you finally realised St Auburn to be a duty you could encompass in your busy life, Nathaniel. Have you had enough of lying around in foreign taverns?’
Her husband’s languid smile did not quite reflect his words. ‘Protecting England from its enemies requires more than a nominal effort, William, though I do admit to a few drinks.’
Strong brandy to quell the pain of a gunshot wound in his side, but only water a few hours later as she had tried to clean it.
She wanted to say this to an old man who had much to thank his grandson for. She wanted him to see the hero in Nathaniel that she so often saw, a spy who had spent years undercover and in places that had hardly been kind. But she did not say any of this because she had no idea as to whether her husband would thank her for it or not. So she stayed quiet.
‘The rooms on the first floor have been made up for you. Dinner will be at eight.’
With that he simply got up and walked away, the tap of his stick on the polished tiles becoming fainter and fainter.
‘My grandfather has never been a man to show his feelings. This attitude, I suppose, was the reason my father and mother left here when I was young. They probably got the same sort of welcome we just did.’
‘Does he not like us, Papa? Is he angry we are here?’
‘No, he loves you, Jamie, but he is old and has gone to his quarters to have a rest.’ Pulling his son up into his arms, he turned towards Cassie. ‘Shall I show you to our room, my lady?’
‘Certainly, my lord.’ Suddenly all the politics of family squabbles did not matter at all. Tonight they would be together in a home that was theirs for good. She couldn’t wait for the evening to come.
The chamber Nathaniel led them to was beautiful, with wide French doors leading out to a substantial balcony, pots festooned with greenery and flowers. Like in France, she thought, and looked across at the view. It was majestic. The far-off hills. The lake. The trees. The farm fields that went on and on for ever.
Jamie’s ro
om was a little farther down the corridor, flanked by the smaller nanny’s quarters and a maid’s room. To one side of Jamie’s bed a whole row of old wooden toys were arranged on low shelves.
‘They were once my father’s. William must have instructed the servants to bring them down from the attic.’ Nathaniel looked surprised.
‘Did you play with them, too?’ she asked as Jamie bent to draw a wooden train along the parquet flooring.
‘I did. My grandfather was never very keen on the idea, though, for he thought I might break them. Perhaps he trusts you more, Jamie.’
‘I will be very careful, Papa.’
‘I know you will.’
* * *
Nat thought that the smile on Cassandra’s face looked tightly drawn. She was obviously shocked by his grandfather’s behaviour and by St Auburn, too. Most people on first seeing the place had the same sort of disbelief, but it was one of those houses that had grown over generations and there had always been plenty of money in the coffers of the Lindsays.
Plenty of money and not a lot of love. William had seen to that. He would get Cassie and Jamie settled and then he would go and find his grandfather. It was one thing for William to be rude to him, but quite another to be contrary with his wife and son. He would simply not put up with it.
But other things began to play on his mind, too. The way the sun slanted in upon Cassie’s hair and the beauty of her face in profile. Crossing the room, he brought her close.
‘Thank you for coming here with me. I am not sure if I would want to face it alone.’
‘I think he is sad, your grandfather. How old were your parents when they died?’
‘Thirty-four and twenty-eight.’
‘Young, then. Imagine what that must have been like. Did he have a wife?’
‘No. Margaret Lindsay died after my father left St Auburn.’